Chartreuse Kitchen & Cocktails, a farm-to-table restaurant from Sandy Levine, the owner of Oakland Art Novelty Co. in Ferndale, and executive chef Doug Hewitt of Dexter-based Terry B’s, is scheduled to open in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood next month.
“The menu will be very small and it will change constantly based on seasonality,” Levine says. “Customers will likely determine house specialties and favorites. Dishes will be priced between $5 and $18 to $19, with a few exceptions.”
Produce will be sourced from Michigan-based farms such as Detroit-based Recovery Park, who grows greens and produce, and from The Shrimp Farm Market in Okemos.
“Our space dictates a lot of what we do,” Levine says. “Our kitchen is incredibly small so there’s no walk-in, no freezer, and there’s extremely limited storage space, and very limited refrigeration as well.” He says multiple shipments of food will come in every day.
The restaurant, located off Woodward Avenue on Kirby Street, is in the former spot of Good Girls Go to Paris Crepes and Rodin Bar & Restaurant, and will feature a long bar that seats about 20 people. A part of the bar offers kitchen seating.
Levin says the $300,000 renovation project was heavily cosmetic. “It’s a big, beautiful, open, airy, sunny dining room.” The restaurant, which seats 100 people, offers a view of the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Chartreuse, a French distilled liquor aged with about 130 herbs, plants, and flowers, will be a central focus of the cocktail list, which will have about five to six drinks. The restaurant will be able to make most classic cocktails, will have a full bar, and all juices will be fresh-squeezed. Cocktails prices will range from $8 to $12.
Kaytee Querro, one of two head bartenders at the Oakland, will run the bar at Chartreuse. The Oakland is known for its extensive cocktail list and fresh ingredients.
Within the restaurant, there are three different areas of focus that were all created by local artists. In Chartreuse Kitchen’s entrance, there’s a floral mural created by Louise Chen, the artist behind Corktown’s Astro Coffee’s chalkboard art. The mural is made up of all the flowers, vegetables, and plants that go into the chartreuse liquor.
Chris Best, who runs the Rust Belt Market in Ferndale, created an installation filled with succulent plants and the florists at Pot and Box, a flower shop with locations in Ann Arbor and Hamtramck, designed an installation with hanging dried flowers, creating the illusion that the flowers are suspended in air.
